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“Perilous Roleplaying Game” is a Scam

Well, we’ve reached the 9-month mark since Jordan Palmer has last posted on Kickstarter regarding the status of his crowdfunded tabletop roleplaying game, “Perilous Roleplaying Game”. I covered this all back in January, on the six-month anniversary of that last post, feel free to read that first, before you continue on here.

Extremely short re-cap: Jordan ghosted all of the backers on Kickstarter and Gamefound after his last post regarding the game back in July, although we backers continued to try to make contact with him. Moving on…

Anyway, since last January there have been a few updates. First of all, no, it appears that Jordan hasn’t replied to any attempts to contact him regarding this game. He hasn’t posted about it on Kickstarter, nor on Gamefound, not even on Itch.io, for that matter. Backers have tried sending him direct messages on Twitter, which he doesn’t reply to (although last year he promised he always would do so). Someone even posted on his Facebook page, on a thread where Jordan talked about “Perilous”, and this backer asked about the status of the print books and cards… Jordan replied by deleting the entire thread.

What is more important here is that Jordan has gone from just ignoring the backers of this game, to blocking them on social media like Twitter. I was one of the folks he blocked on the ol’ Blue Bird, in fact, which is rather ridiculous, since one of the last things he posted on Kickstarter regarding the game was that backers can always get ahold of him by DM on Twitter.

So, anyway, most of the backers like myself on Kickstarter and/or Gamefound have finally come to the realization that Jordan Palmer has:

  1. No intention of delivering the print books or cards for “Perilous Roleplaying Game”.
  2. Taken the money raised over Kickstarter, and which he continues to raise over Gamefound as pre-orders, and ran.
  3. Shown his true colors, and is in fact a Scammer.

Normally, I wouldn’t be so bold as to make these claims, but the evidence is open and available for all to see. Nine months without posting anything to backers on Kickstarter about the game’s progress, and having never posted any updates at all to Gamefound backers. Blocking anyone who asks about the game’s status on Twitter, deleting posts about it on Facebook, and the like. If Jordan had any intention of following up with delivery of the books and cards for “Perilous Roleplaying Game”, he would have posted about it on Kickstarter at some point in the last nine months.

Or on Facebook.

Or Twitter.

Or Tumblr.

Or Itch.io.

Or Gamefound, for that matter.

Now then, here’s the thing: As frustrating as this is, there is really nothing we backers can do about it. Jordan gets to walk away with our money, while never delivering the books or cards he promised to deliver. But there is one thing we can do, which while it won’t get us out products, it will perhaps help out some poor sap who comes across one of Jordan’s future crowdfunded projects:

We can advise them.

You see, Kickstarter projects have this great feature, where people are offered a chance to back the project for only like $1. This won’t get you any rewards, but it does provide you access to the project’s site, read backer-only updates, make comments, and so forth. This is done so that people who are on the fence about a project can check it out, see if they really want to jump fully in before it closes, and upgrade their pledge amount, should they choose to do so.

This happens to be an important way for Kickstarter creators to get backers on-board, especially in those crucial last few hours before a project closes.

Anyway, for the cost of a dollar or two, we “Perilous” backers can follow Jordan’s future projects, post comments therein all about his failure to deliver on “Perilous”, and his ghosting of us back in 2022. In short, we can let the entire crowdfunding community know about how Jordan Palmer took the money and fan on “Perilous”, and could do it again on future projects.

Of course, Jordan might decide to not offer a minimal-cost backer option on future projects, to avoid this very problem. This is entirely possible, actually. Then again, you know what else is something Jordan can’t stop? Blogs, social media posts, Youtube videos, podcasts. Basically, we backers can deluge the Internet with posts about his new game… and then use that as a platform to discuss how he scammed so many people when it came to “Perilous”.

I know that I don’t quite have the internet reach that I once did, but I do know how to work some SEO into my blog posts. I also have a small but devoted listener base for the “Loot Mechanics” podcast, and I have literally no problem starting up one of my old Youtube channels (and maybe even the old Twitch channel), to spread the word. This would all be in addition to regular social media channels, such as Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, and so forth.

The point is, I hope the thousands of dollars he walked away with from “Perilous Roleplaying Game” (on the Kickstarter alone) was worth it, I really do. Because his reputation in the crowdfunding community is quickly turning to mud now, and that’s entirely his own fault.

UPDATE: Gamefound has locked down the “Perilous Roleplaying Game” project on their site. New people cannot preorder, and current backers cannot add items to their preorders at this time. This may well be due to the email I sent them, asking for Gamefound to investigate the project as a scam, and laying out the evidence we have to back this claim up. They replied that they would look into the situation, and a couple of days later, the project is locked down. It hasn’t been shut down entirely, which tells me that this may well be a temporary situation, as they conduct an investigation, but I hope that it becomes permanent, and something more is done to deal with Jordan Palmer’s scammy ways.

Scormus
I'm the editor, publisher, and primary "talent" here at Scormey.com.
https://scormey.com

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